


did so to their sorrow

by skimlevel



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Be Careful What You Wish For, Horror, M/M, McLennon, horror story retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:56:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skimlevel/pseuds/skimlevel
Summary: a retelling of the short horror story "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs but with Mclennon and PAINor in which John finds the wish-granting monkey's paw.





	1. wishes

**Author's Note:**

> hello. this is the first time i'm writing something like this, so i ask that you put up with me. 
> 
> and huge thank you to my pal rufusrant for your suggestions and motivation. love you! 
> 
> you can read Jacobs' original [here](http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/english/Jacob_Monkey.pdf)

Mists of winter cold breeze blew through John's hair as he checked the bus schedule on an app. He'd missed it by two minutes. Fuck it. He grumbled and turned the other way. 

London was certainly a nice change of scenery. He'd saved enough for Paul and himself to rent a decent flat, scarce belief, but now they were barely keeping up with it. But at least they had each other- _you sappy sappy sap,_ Paul would tease, falling on their sofa with his bass still strapped to him after a night of clubs.

John, with time to spare, turned the empty corner to the newsagents. He bought a newspaper and selected some Cadbury bars for himself. When he exited the corner was no longer empty: next to the door crouched an old bird in an _enormous_ hat. Junk cluttered the sludge in front of her in a heap.

"Funny things you've got there!" John called out.

She turned her head slowly and smiled. John decided she wasn't bad-looking, and offered her one of the Cadburys. 

"Ta," she replied, slotting it into her jacket sleeve. "Are you from around here?"

"Nope," said John. "Jus' moved in with my husband. Soon-to-be husband." 

"Ah. Congratulations," she indicated her heap of objects. "Consider anything here my blessing to you both."

"Aw, that's great, but I can't possibly-"

"I insist."

John shrugged and bent down. It was a heap of _interesting_ junk, he'd admit. Nearly buried under a painted biscuit tin and an elephantine costume jewellery ring (how tempting) was a stretch of shrivelled talons. He pulled it out and immediately dropped it. 

"What in the blazes is _that?"_

The woman started laughing, deep and loud. 

"My dear. A monkey's paw."

"Ya don't say!" said John, making to pick it up. "How'd you get it?" 

"Salvaged from a war in India," she said as if it were a daily occurrence. "I don't recommend you taking it, though."

"Attached, are you?"

"Not at all," she returned his grin. "It may have the power to grant three wishes, but-"

"Three _wishes?"_ John laughs. "Is this a fairy story?"

 _"Life_  can be a fairy story," she said, but her tone was quiet. "If you make it to be. But the consequences are hellish."

"What consequences?"

"Of these three wishes. They happen because by making wishes you are toying with fate."

John steadied himself a bit, still in a squat. He pressed a finger to his chin. 

"How do you know all this?"

"I've seen it firsthand," she said vaguely and adjusted her hat. "How about that ring, instead?"

"Alright then," John nodded, and with a slight of hand slid the paw into his plastic bag. 


	2. 500K

John caught the bus just as it arrived. He extracted the paw slowly while skimming the front page of the newspaper. It was such an ugly, standout thing that it stole all his interest from the news, a blemish in the humble contents of his bag.

But yet he couldn't help but be drawn in. Beauty, in his own experience, was often found in places he paid no thought to, or, the dingy church where he'd met Paul. And now this rigour-mortised, dark fingered thing of wilt and wither was the new successor.

Purely because of said wish-granting.

Other than that it belonged out of human sight. John held it the way one would hold a severed paw if they had to: barely, between his thumb and index with a grimace. 

Midst of it, he realised he _didn't_ have to and stuffed it back in the bag, under the newspaper. He crammed the Cadbury bars into his pockets. The bus pulled into his stop.

* * *

John came back to Paul eating takeout cross-legged at their table. 

 _"Heeeeeere's Johnny!"_  

Paul jolted in his chair, and then promptly burst into giggles. A sweet sauce packet sailed into John's chin as he dumped the bag. "Wanker!"

"Tsk, tsk," John laughed, taking his seat. "What's all this?"

"Found a new place downstairs," Paul replied, producing another container. " 's fusion stuff, see, they put the chow mein in the bread-"

"Jesus! Like a sandwich?"

"I know, right?" Paul slid him another sweet sauce packet. "You'll need it. Bread's really dry."

John chuckled, and kicked the bag under the table. "I'll take my chances."

* * *

Paul fell asleep watching the evening news on their shitty telly (they'd gotten it cheap at some thrift place but both swore it was straight from the 60s). John placed the Cadburys in the fridge and tried turning the volume up on the blasted thing, before giving up and snatching his newspaper from its bag. 

He nearly yelps when the monkey's paw comes into view. He'd forgotten all about it for a moment. He switched the telly off and woke Paul.

"Go away," he slurred. 

"C'mon," John teased, and laid a kiss to Paul's forehead, "don't ya wanna snuggle?" 

That did the trick. John had Paul tangled in their duvet right after that, eyelids fluttery. He kissed them both, lingering, and didn't leave until Paul's breathing was steady.

John sat at their table, the paw in both hands. The flat, the world, hauntingly silent. He hummed a tune to himself and ran his finger over the palm lines, and if he closed his eyes he could believe that they were guitar strings and not some crack-dead animal.

 _How_ do _you wish on a monkey's paw?_ John recalled when he and Paul binge-watched _Harry Potter_  and proceeded to draw air circles with the tips of the paw's black fingers. He rubbed it and braced himself for an appearance of... the monkey? A jinn? He grabbed a Cadbury from the fridge and helped himself to a cig. The paw lay open and empty when he was done. 

 _Hellish consequences_ , the woman says, though John couldn't remember how she'd said it. Flighty as a charlatan (which she most _probably_ was) or as serious as stone. _By making wishes you are toying with fate._

John snorts. He was overthinking, Paul would say, and roll those pretty eyes. He picked up the paw. 

"I wish for... five hundred thousand dollars."

There! It would settle the year's rent! And probably the year after that. He'd be able to spoil him and Paul both, maybe even buy rings for getting down on one knee, hellish consequences _who?_

Nothing happened. No wad of notes, no bank cheque, no winning lotto ticket materialised on the table. He opened his wallet to check for cash and was met with the same amount of change he'd gotten from the newsagents. He turned his pockets inside out. Nothing.

He scoffed. He lifted another cig to his lips and chucked the paw at a stack of paperbacks, knocking them over with a clack. At least he'd gotten a free bookend. 


	3. 9 o'clock

John trudged back to bed and stole the blankets from Paul. Lousy monkey crap. He'd have to go out and see if anyone had responded to their flyers. The end of the month was approaching and they had yet to get rent money.

 _Maybe 500K was a bit much,_ John mumbled into his pillow. But it was _a monkey's paw_ from some crone begging in front of a newsagents', so...

Paul grumbled indistinctly and grabbed the blankets back. The next day he awoke John with a cheerful morning kiss. "Sleeping Beauty," he teased.

"What time 'sit?"

"Early," he replied. "I'm gonna buy breakfast. Want anythin’?"

John nestled his nose on Paul's knee. "I want you."

"Very tempting.”

"Just get me a smokes or somethin'," said John. He closed his eyes again. Then a ringing sound startled him, sitting him up in bed which Paul's side was still unmade. He fumbled around for his phone. The ringing ceased as he forced open his eyes. Unknown numbers galore at 9 o'clock, what a joy.

"Macca!" John called out. The flat was silent. "Macca?"

No reply. John scrolled through his missed calls. They were all the same number. Telemarketers were dead pressing now, weren't they? His phone lit up with the number again. He rolled his eyes.

"Helloooooo?" John said, trying to sound bored.

_"Hello? Have I reached John Lennon?"_

It's a bird's voice.

"Yes," he replied. "Who're you?"

_"I'm calling from London Regional Hospital. You were the first contact on the victim's speed dial and we've yet to find his next-of-kin, so-"_

"What?" John cut in. "What victim?"

 _"Mr James McCartney."_  John fell flat on his back. _"We received a call for a road accident near two hours ago and we've been trying to contact you since."_

"An  _accident?_ Is- is he alright?"

_"Please wait a moment-"_

"Don't you dare put me on hold!" John screamed. "He’s my _husband!_ Is he alright?"

 _"Pardon, Mr Lennon, please,"_ the voice replied. _"Right now the doctors are still operating-"_

John hung up. He rushed to the door but froze in his tracks. The paw was lying in a stack of paperbacks, resting snugly in the middle of an open one like a bookmark. He snatched up the book.

Flurries of cabs drove past him, but John slammed the address into his phone and ran. His slippers grew cold and wet from remains of snow.

 _Paul, Macca,_ he goes down the list as he dodged cars and people and street lamps _._ His eyes burned and froze with tears and temperature when he dashed into the hospital's reception. The nurse behind the counter rose from her chair, face in fright.

"May I help you-?"

 _"Where's my husband?"_  

"Please sir," she put out her hands to steady him, "His name?"

 

 _Why does your name go first?_  

_McCartney-Lennon? Ha! As if!_

 

The nurse brings him to a row of seats outside an operating suite that's bleak as death- _no, stop it._  The paw stuck out of the mess of tight pages in his hand. A suited, skinny bloke next to him stopped tapping his foot as John sat. 

"You're McCartney?" his voice was gruff. He was late for work.

John nodded. The bloke wiped sweat from his pissy face. 

"Listen, I should be in a meeting right now, and he came outta nowhere," he produced a pen and chequebook from his bag. "But I'm real sorry-"

The nurse grabbed John's arm before he swung the book at the bloke's head. 

"You're sorry?" John seethed. "I'll fucking show you _sorry-"_

"Sir! Please!"

"I am," the bloke rolled his eyes. He tore the cheque out and flinched as John made a fist. "But I really can't stay, no."

He slipped the cheque into the nurse's dainty hand and made a run for it. The entire hall was hell itself. Blood pounded in the walls and floor and turned as still as Paul sleeping after a hard night. John fell into his seat, book spread on his knee and paw in full glory.

The nurse eyed it with a shudder. "I'll fetch you water," she whispered. She slid the cheque into the paw's palm and inched away. 

Blood stopped pounding. John looked down at it.

Addressed to James McCartney was a pay-out for five hundred thousand. 


	4. red and sweat

Nurses’ shoes clacked. A clock ticked. John could hear everything and most of all with that horror-flick drawl that rose from deep in his belly and up to his ears. He felt sour water in his mouth and dashed to the loo. The book and paw clattered at the foot of a bin.

 _By making wishes you are toying with fate._ They’d been fated to be penniless and ragged. Sad gits playing at clubs for people who shouted for sammiches and drink over their chords and buy bus passes until they were old and grey. They’d never afford a car. Suits to say _yes_ _I do_. To enrol a kid in school.

John coughed out last bits of sick. The cheque was pristine in the paw. He had begun to sob, through his nose, and clutched the withered thing between his eyes like a rosary.

“Make him okay,” he spluttered. “I don’t care what happens next. I can’t-” he choked. He doesn’t want to say it.

“I can’t lose him. Not like Julia. I wish for him to make it through. Make him okay.”

John repeated all the words- _betcha can’t sing that three times fast-_ knees split on the floor. He scrunched up his face, sneezed into the loo roll, and gathered up his book.

He sat back down in front of the operating suite, door lights still scarlet. John stared at it, not daring to blink. Then they switched off.

A red-scrubs surgeon appeared, followed by a male assistant with bloody gloves. John suppressed a wave of vomit.

“Mr McCartney?” The surgeon's face was obscured by her cap and mask. Dots of red and sweat.

“Yes.”

“We managed to save him. He got here in time.”

John stopped gnawing his insides. The assistant looked away.

“But there was trauma to his left arm. His entire hand-” she brought up her own and rolled a fist over it- “was crushed under the tyre.”

Julia comes to mind. Mimi wailing at the phone. Paul screaming so hotly he passed out. Their guitars are at the foot of their bed.

“...crushed?”

“The nerves were severed clean.”

The book hit the floor with a thud. The paw sprawled out at the assistant's shoe. He kicked it away with a yelp. 

* * *

Propped against a wall of pillows Paul stared at his bandaged hand, eyes afraid. John opened the door, out of breath, mouthing things even he can't make out. 

"John."

Paul blinked rapidly. His right arm rose out, almost in a reach, pinch me so I can wake the _fuck_ up from this, and John wrapped him in a hug. 

"You're okay."

"John, I can't feel my hand-"

"You're alive."

"What's going on?"

"I love you so much," John pressed a desperate kiss to under Paul's eye. Paul's nose was damp against his cheek. Eyes drained.

"I was so scared," John whispered.

"Me too," Paul whispered back. His right arm had curled to John's back, but without any real weight. It had been crushed out of him. 

John lets his tears come, and kisses all over Paul's face. He rubs circles into his bandaged hand as if to erase it on paper. 


End file.
